August 27th, 2010 by Ruth Jones

The Stig gets mobile

Each month we look at a specific community and digest the popular content covered by the media and discussed in a range of social forums. In August, we looked at the mobile space, comparing how the conversations differ, which organisations are getting attention and what is making the headlines.

After identifying and monitoring the influencers, we use a variety of free social tools, such as Twittertim.es, to pull out the popular stories. Today, TopGear’s blog post on the BBC’s battle to protect the Stig’s identity topped our community paper, receiving the most re-tweets in the mobile social media community. This attention was mirrored in the media, driving traffic to all the major news sites.

However, content doesn’t always cross over from the traditional media to the social media world. With both the traditional and social media communities growing and evolving, we’re committed to getting to know how they tick.

Next week, we’re publishing some insight into the mobile content space, tweet @becdaniel if you’re interested.

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May 26th, 2010 by Ruth Jones

Taking a peak at the #Open Mobile Summit

The #Open Mobile Summit 2010 in London opened today, as more than 250 influncers from the mobile, media and internet industries made their way through the doors of the sought after event. Whilst the media, GoMo News and V3 focused their attention on Andrew Gilbert’s keynote on ‘connected things’, we took a look at which speakers were causing a stir in the online communities.

While Nokia and Qualcomm were generating a good buzz in the online communities, it was Peggy Anne Salz’s blog post that attracted the most attention. Providing a sneak preview of the key points of Alisa Bowen’s speech, no doubt the community outside of the #Open Mobile Summit were attracted to the insight.

With use of the open mobile summit hashtag peaking at 9am, we followed the conversations of more than 200 influncers from mobile operators, app developers, vendors, journalists to bloggers.

There was certainly no shortage of online discussions about next week’s arrival of the iPad. From digital design agency Fjord discussing the iPad’s target market…

chetansharma: RT @peggyanne: RT @DanWinterbottom: Fjord: Expect two spikes of adoption for iPad; 15 year olds and 45 year olds

…..to a Nokia blogger posing questions about its revolutionary position….

JayMontano#openmobile ipad – game changer or niche thing?

However, despite the chatter around the #Open Mobile Summit, it was the Meffys’ finalist list that took the top slot for online conversation.

Thanks to TweetMeme, The Twitter Tim.es and Trendistic for the extra data.

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May 7th, 2010 by Ruth Jones

Expose on Infosec social media buzz

With the prominence of traditional media diminishing and the buzz growing around how brands should behave in social communities, we took a look how this was impacting conversation and content during the UK’s largest IT security tradeshow, InfoSecurity Europe.

The general buzz around #Infosec and #Infosec 2010 kicked off on Monday 26th April, with conversations peaking around 10am and 2pm on the first and second days of the show. With conversation beginning to dwindle on Thursday morning, it was Symantec’s acquisition of PGP and GuardianEdge mid-day on Thursday that caused the chatter to peak.

The #Infosec hashtag peaked at 26 tweets an hour and we reviewed roughly 752 tweets mentioning Infosec during the course of the show.  I’m not a mathematician, but that is around seven per cent of the 12,000 registered information security professionals using the show hash tags. Whilst, this may seem low, hash tag tracking is just one tool for monitoring conversation. Vendors were actively being discussed, old colleagues were arranging to meet and when Symantec made its announcement, the news quickly spread.

So, who was talking about what?

On Twitter…

Symantec to acquire PGP and GuardianEdge

Seizing of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s computers

Who needs exploits when you have social engineering

PDF malware using net attack technique

In the media…

Symantec acquires PGP and GuardianEdge (169)

Data breach notification law coming, says watchdog (54)

PwC report shows bleak security landscape (22)

And, the analyst take..

Gartner, Bob Walder: Infosec 2010 London “the only surprise being that HP didn’t try to trump Symantec’s acquisition announcements by grabbing McAfee!”

Bloor, Nigel Stanley: Time to hug a PGP employee? “Very rarely do I ever get to witness the effects of a corporate takeover first hand but the acquisition of PGP by Symantec”

Bloor, Bob Tarzey: The big yellow monster strikes again “the latest news makes Symantec even more of a force to be reckoned with”

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April 28th, 2010 by Ruth Jones

#Infosec 2010: day 2 social media expose

News and journalist attendance is lighter than normal at InfoSec this year. But what is everyone at Infosec talking about? We’ve taken a look at the volume and dynamics of the conversations of 500 security influencers on Twitter

Here’s a snap shot of the top tweeted stories on the day:

Police Seize Jason Chen’s Computers – iPhone 4 leak – Gizmodo
Apple pursues the recovery of its ‘lost’ iPhone.

Verizon dubs sec researchers ‘narcissistic vulnerability pimps’ – The Register
Security researchers who expose flaws come under attack

Although there are two hashtags in use in conversations (#infosec and #infosec2010), Trendistic has shown a steady uptake of conversation since Sunday.

The peaks in conversation, which are unlikely to be a surprise, are taking place at 10am and 1pm, with the use of the #infoSec2010 hashtag showing an hourly posting of 18 tweets.

Not every vendor is sticking closely to the concept of a community and some – which we won’t name – are pimping corporate content, others are actively enticing conversation.

Here’s a snap shot of attendees that are engaging with each other:

GeorgeVHulme: Anyone have any good data on the status of the TSA airport biometric credential program? @securitytwits #infosec

kidko92 RT @ChetWisniewski: Happy 25th to Sophos at InfoSec Europe, and Sophos Security Chet Chat episode 7 is posted http://bit.ly/dtKnhQ

While only a fraction of the 12,000 information security professionals that were expected at the show are engaged on Twitter there’s no doubt that it has added an additional dimension to the show.

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October 9th, 2009 by Ruth Jones

Social media: You don’t have a choice

I want to share a client’s thoughts on social media.

Edward Brice, is Senior Vice President of Marketing for Lumension. Here Ed talks with Fred Von Graf of New Media with Fred.

Key takeaways from the interview:

  • Social Media isn’t about generating sales; it is about advocacy and engagement.  It is about customer generated content, them sharing the experiences they are having with your product
  • Twitter is not a channel for pushing; its for listening. We will likely see this type of technology integrating into CRM systems
  • ROI? We didn’t get wrapped up in ROI, the objectives are so different. If we get leads and drive sales, it is icing on the cake, it is not why we got involved in social media. Twitter, is not a scalable medium
  • If you are not thinking about YouTube and B2B you are missing a trick
  • You need to be thinking about how many customers that you have helped via Twitter. Look at the big picture. Make a distinction between metrics and KPI
  • Social media is long term
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September 25th, 2009 by Ruth Jones

Embargo tug of war

TechCrunch’s policy on embargoes caused a ground swell of PR chatter last year, as it raised a question mark over whether the rest of the media would follow suit.  Michael Arrington’s latest post, The Last Has Fallen, The Embargo is Dead has caused a stir once again. However, the headline isn’t reflective of the policy.

The fact is.. embargoes aren’t dead, TechCrunch just wants an exclusive and won’t honour embargoes offered to the wider masses. This is fair enough. Most PRs will have been told at some point, that their story will only be covered if that journalist can have it as an exclusive. PRs should therefore consider this during planning meetings when deciding on the best method for maximising a story.

Who will win the embargo tug of war has yet to be determined. Will more publications and bloggers follow TechCrunch. Or, can we collectively keep embargoes on the agenda? Robert Scoble’s post PR people: 10 ways to screw up @techcrunch’s embargo policy makes for interesting reading.

I do agree with Arrington’s sentiment that if we want embargoes to count, we need to punish those that break them. The question is, which PRs are brave enough to do this?

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July 7th, 2009 by Ruth Jones

Newsjacko

As Speed HQ is set to be swamped by Harry Potter fans this evening, the World Wide Web will be flooded with Michael Jackson fans looking to get a glimpse of his funeral. The memorial service is expected to attract more attention than that of Elvis Presley and could become the biggest web event.

So, how will the internet cope? If reports that it collapsed as the news of Michael Jackson’s death broke are to believed, then it is unlikely. Whilst, TechCrunch summed up the web troubles, Interoute rightly points out, that it was not an Internet fail, but more a website capacity fail.

Although the service will be shown on five main US television networks, Internet uses are set to be logging on to check out the live streaming and latest reports. Facebook has teamed up with CNN, MySpace with AEG Live and various new sites, including The Guardian are ready to start live blogging from 4.00PM.

So, will the Internet fail? I doubt it, but you may see the odd whale.

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April 24th, 2009 by Ruth Jones

The 60 second tech bulletin

Oracle brass show tough love

Following one of the hottest technology acquisitions, Oracle’s senior management has expressed its tough love for Sun Microsystems’ products and people. The Register

Global hunt for hackers who infected 1.9m computers

The Federal Bureau of Investigations and Met Police are hunting a gang of Ukraine hackers responsible for a botnet that has apparently utilised more than 70 government departments and hundreds of large corporations. Financial Times

Susan Boyle YouTube Video

We might of had enough of Susan Boyle, but it doesn’t look like YouTube viewers have. Britain’s Got Talent video is on track to become the most popular video in the history of YouTube, amassing nearly 100 million views in its first nine days. Wired

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